remote cards

There is a Polish girl floating around the book shop. She has long brown hair, tied back. She has a pronounced nose, short skirt, great legs, brown boots, and a pink jacket, which is embroidered with patterns. She sits on the floor by the crime section, and then later is perched on a chair beside the table of chick lit. She seems to have been there for ages before finally going to the sales desk. The girl
at the check out has just taken the books from her when there is an announcement. Someone has handed in a lost phone, it belongs to the person they name in the announcement. Its her phone, she gasps. The girl calls down to the front desk, and they bring it to her. Explain that someone handed it in, and they only know her name because her husband phoned looking for her. Is just like een fillum, she says,
grinning, her English heavily accented.

Labels: girl, glasgow, phone, polish

I’m in the centre of Glasgow for a day course, an unfamiliar building, unfamiliar people. We’ve stopped the session for lunch, had a bite to eat, and all individually filtered outside to enjoy the sunshine. On my way out I stop at the gents, in front of which there is one of a number of open “public” areas. Here there are two sofas and a table. The guy sits with his back to the wall. He is young, maybe 18 or 20, doing his best to look smart and professional. She is a few years older, blonde and more casual. She wears a vest top appropriate to the weather, dipping neckline showing off ample and bright pink cleavage – it looks tender and sunburnt. There is something about the little of the conversation I hear, of the body language that says this is an interview. Though having it in such an open space seems a little odd to me. As I head down the stairs it sounds like they are wrapping up. A minute later, as I stand outside scanning the shops in this street decide where I’m going to go in the fifteen minutes I have available to me, he comes outside. He looks at me, recognising me from a moment ago, and he grins, he pumps the air with his fist. Shouts - Got it! Before happily wandering down the street, now pushing the buttons of the phone that was clamped in his fist, keen to share the good news.

Labels: course, glasgow, interview, lunch, phone, sun burnt

It's ten in the morning in the tramway and you know how birds sometimes explode into song? On public transport, they explode into phone. In several different languages. There's a woman arguing her mother, a man explaining he is going to be late for work, a Croatian girl in a disco get up talking about who knows what and right opposite me are the two Russians. The thin, slumped one has a Greensleaves ringtone and I know the melody is going to eat up my ears for the rest of the day. Short fragments of Greensleaves pour out of his speakers, then stop while he stares at his display in desperation. He makes no effort to move.

His friend, equally scruffy but bulkier, with a baseball cap and a chin that says "it's a beard when I stop shaving for five days" is taking a series of phone calls. With each call his irritation mounts. Soon, he is yelling angry Russian syllables into his handheld, face glowering upwards to the roof, hands gesticulating expressively. It sounds like a business matter, and it sounds like they are under pressure. Beardface clicks the call away, slams the phone down on his thigh.

Seamlessly, of course, the other phone begins to ring. Greensleaves fragments spill into the air. Thinslump, thinner still and slumping even more, stares at the display in his lap, hopelessness in his eyes. The complaints of his friend, in fat Slavic syllables, drift towards the ceiling and mingle there with the ragged ringtone residues.

Labels: cell, phone, vienna

The office is undergoing ongoing refurbishment, which makes for frequent moves of entire departments at a time. To coordinate the receptionists/phone managers deal with all the phone numbers in the building. Before a move, they go round the floor with a map of desks and names, and take note of the phone number. So that once the person has moved the number should automatically be mapped to the phone that is on the new desk they end up at. I wonder about the logic, for the most part they have a directory of names and numbers – so the theory should be that they already have everyone’s numbers already. Of course, in practice, there will be exceptions - contractors, vagrants, resurrectees but they should be in the minority. Regardless, the two women in purple blouses, black cardigans and shock blonde hair take a side of the floor each, working down from desk to desk. She asks my number and I point at the post-it. Hmm, well, if you don’t mind, I’m going to check that. She phones reception, can you tell me what number this is? She notes it, you were right! I know, just because I can’t remember it doesn’t mean I don’t know what it is. Though, as they go round, its amazing how many people have been sitting for weeks at a desk, and have no idea what their number is. She slaps my back, hard, in congratulation and moves on, my back is still pulsing from the blow.

Labels: glasgow, map, number, phone, rennovation, switchboard